Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End – 360 – Review

The summer blockbuster movie season
is here and many gamers know what that means: tons of games based off the summer
blockbuster movies. The sad thing is that all gamers know that most of the games
based off movies tend to be less than stellar, and that is due to shortened
development times and being constrained by the limits of what they can do since
the game is based off the movies. With that being said, Pirates of the
Caribbean: At World’s End is out in theaters now, so the game based off of it is
now released upon the gaming world. How does it stack up, and does it fall into
the crummy “movie-to-game” world we know so well?

This is a platforming game with
combat and puzzle elements thrown into the mix. As you go through each of the
game’s various levels you will be tasked with trying to locate various items,
collect treasures, and try to solve simple puzzles to continue on. Most of the
game will revolve around you trying to collect some item, then fight hordes of
mindless enemies, solve a simple puzzle or two, ending with a duel before you
can progress on to start this all over again.

The combat for this game is a joke.
All you have to do is hit the A or X button three times or more (depending on
the enemy) and then your enemy will be “stunned” and let you strike the
finishing move by turning around. When I first started playing this game, my
wife was watching me and she even noticed how lame the enemies where and was
asking why do they just turn around and await the death stroke. All of the
movies in this series have feature really good combat sequences, and it has not
translated well at all in this game. To help break up the repetition you can do
various special moves, throw knifes at enemies (which is fun but gets old
quickly), or even shoot them with a gun, but even with these options the combat
will disappoint you.

I think the developers realized
their combat engine was lacking so they added in another feature called
“Dueling” that occurs at specific points during the game. What happens is that
you will see three orbs on your enemy’s side of the screen. At certain times
they will light up a green color and it is your cue to hit either up or down to
try to defend your self, and if you do it in time you can even counter and go on
the offensive to try to beat him. The problem with this is that even though this
is fun the first few times, it gets extremely repetitious in later parts of this
game.

The graphics for this game are
really outstanding. The way that the developers were able to make the likeness
of each major movie character is just striking. When you are playing this game
you will be amazed at how much the in-game characters look like their movie
counterparts. The best part is that even the animations matches up to what you
see in the movies, even Jack’s flamboyant mannerisms, even though at times it is
a bit overdone, it is really appreciated. The only bad thing about the
animations is that there is not enough variety of them, especially when you are
in the midst of battle. No matter which character you are, you will see the
exact same moves over and over again.

The environments that you will be
traveling through are also really well done. There is always a lot of detail in
each one of the places you visit to make it really look as close to the movies
as it can be. Beside the characters the other thing that is really well done is
the ships (The Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman) as they look like they have
been at sea for a very long time. The only issue that I really have with the
graphics in this game is the camera control. It felt like I was fighting the
camera as much as I was the onslaught of enemies that I must subdue in order to
progress in this game.

I was really disappointed in the
audio for this game. The minute I loaded up the game and started playing I knew
something was amiss. Captain Jack Sparrow rarely talks, and when he finally does
mumble something you realize that the developers didn’t get the actors from the
movie to lend their talents here. This is a huge miss on the developer’s part
because half of what makes the movies so great is the dialog that the main
characters have. While the animation of the characters is down pat, not hearing
some of the quips the characters are known for is a huge disappointment.

This leads me to another point,
since the developers didn’t get the original actors to fill in their roles, they
compensated this by rarely having Jack speak at all during the game. It is
really rare when you hear him spout some dialogue, even though it sounds silly;
it is almost unnerving not to hear the main character speak at all, especially
since this is based off a movie character that is always known for shooting off
his mouth. The music and sound effects sound like they were taken straight from
the movie, which is a good thing to help compensate for the lack of actual
talking.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s
End is rated Teen.

Gameplay: 5.7
The gameplay is really mediocre. All of the
puzzles you face are extremely easy. The combat and platforming elements are
also ridiculously simple.

Graphics: 8.4
The graphics look really great for this game, especially the outdoor
environments. What I really enjoyed is that the developers really captured
Captain Sparrow’s mannerisms.

Sound: 6.0
Unfortunately Disney didn’t get the voice actors from the movie to
reprise their parts in the game adaptation. The imitators do a decent job, but
it will leave you disappointed. The music for this game is decent, but will not
blow your socks off.

Difficulty: Easy
This title is obviously made for the younger generation of gamers, as
it takes no time to breeze through this entire game.

Concept: 4.9
This game is as “cookie cutter” as you can get.

Multiplayer: 6.0
The multiplayer for this game is nothing special. First off, you and a
friend can duel to see who the better swordsman is. The other option is to play
through six levels and try to take out all of the enemies in the way; you can
play this mode either competitively or cooperatively.

Overall: 6.0
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End could have been a better game,
but the repetition in battle, lack of character monologue, and its “been there,
done that” gaming approach really hold this game back from being something
special. Fans of this movie might have the urge to buy it, but I would just mark
this game as a rental.